Category Archives: 0 Star Movies

Voodoo Woman Review

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Uh oh, it’s time for another indie film. You know how some series like Transformers start you off with a low bar? Indie films have no bar at this point so you can only expect to hit rock bottom and not rise above it. It’s rather sad to generalize all indie films like that, but it’s gotten to the point where I’ve probably seen like 10+ indie films in a row and they’ve all turned out to be completely terrible or just very bad. This one is no exception as it manages to reach the legendary 0 score. There’s just nothing good about this film and it gradually gets worse and worse as it goes on.

Marilyn wants to get rich so she murders some guy and gets the bartender to trick a hired guide to take her to some tribes. She wants their gold and will do just about anything to get it. Dr. Chaka tells her that the tribe will let her steal their gold if she goes through a ritual. He wants to do this because he aims to create a super creature who is superior to humankind and then he will show her off to the other colleges. She has different plans for this though and either way, the tribe looks to be in some real danger.

The film starts out at rock bottom right from the get go. We see a dead animal as part of a vicious ritual and then a young maiden having to become a monster. She resists the orders to destroy her village, but it’s still a pretty sad fate. She escapes only to get forcefully used and then murdered by one of the main characters. The film was desperate to stay as dark and gritty as it could throughout. This scene didn’t add anything to the film and just reminded you of what you were watching.

Another ongoing plot is that Marilyn is used to getting what she wants through the use of her feminine wiles, but Ted (The adventurer) is determined not to let her win. As such, he goes the James Bond route. He has his fun, but always reminds her afterwards that he still won’t help her. It’s certainly not the most heroic route to go if you ask me and it just makes both characters look really bad. Rick’s the terrible main character who turns out to be evil and is quickly murdered afterwards. It was good to have him written out of the film at the very least.

Meanwhile, you have Chaka’s wife who is imprisoned in her own home. She makes the mistake of running towards the villains though which doesn’t end well. At least she gets over her husband’s death pretty quick once Ted comes along. Chaka was a bad person and the film made sure to show that quite a lot so it makes you wonder how they ever got together anyway. Meanwhile, one slave tried to help the wife, but was naturally murdered for his efforts. If you leave this film alive, you can count yourself lucky since most of the characters were murdered by the end.

The actual Voodoo Woman in question wasn’t a very scary monster. She could barely move and had to be the slowest villain that I’ve seen since the Gill Man. While she was bullet proof as well as acid proof, I can’t see anyone actually being scared of her in the theater. That means that the film failed on that account. The suit was also pretty low budget and just looked fake the whole time. The film also barely had the Voodoo Woman appear, probably due to budget constraints.

The film’s first half takes forever to go anywhere. The two plots don’t merge until the film is already well into the climax and then it quickly ends. I was glad that the film wasn’t any longer since it had already been dragging on for quite a while. The sooner it was over the better if you ask me. After all, watching a 0 star film is never much of a pleasant experience. How could the film have been better? Well, cut out Rick and all of his scenes, take away Chaka and his experiments, take away Marilyn and her unfortunate plots, take away all of the animal violence, and then we’ve got a film. The problem is that you’re taking away about 80% of the film so it’s a completely different movie by that point right? That’s why there basically isn’t anything to save in this film, it would take a whole other movie to be good.

The only part of the film that could have been semi decent was the corrupt cafe towards the beginning of the film. I like how the bartender robs people and then covers up murders for an extra profit. He covers all of the bases and even robs the people that are about to be murdered so the real murderer can’t take the full cut of the profits. Even here though, the film makes sure to remind you that none of the characters are too smart. One professional is distracted by a dancer who very obviously goes to distract him and doesn’t notice that two villains went into his room in the mean time. This guy was supposed to be smart…how could he fall for the oldest trick in the book? It was pretty disgraceful so it was hard to feel bad for him when he met his inevitable demise. At least he didn’t have to live through the rest of the film so that’s something.

Overall, The Voodoo Woman is a movie that is best left forgotten. It’s not a film that is so low budget that it ends up being good. It’s just a bad film that doesn’t get any better no matter how long you continue to watch it. There are few films that are quite as bad as this one and it’s just unfortunate. I can’t say that I ever had much hopes in a film about Voodoo though. It’s certainly not the most interesting plot device out there. Ideally I won’t be seeing a film this bad again for a while, but you never know. There’s always another film around the bend that it just waiting to reach new heights and once in a while…they succeed! There’s a twist ending in this film by the way so if you somehow watch the movie, stick around for it. It reminds you that the whole thing is futile. Of course, you should watch just about any other film instead of this one. Even Pixels is a considerable improvement since it at least features an arcade.

Overall 0/10

Disturbia Review

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Well, it’s time for a horror/slasher/thriller film where the main plot tries to live up to the title. The romance is definitely a contender for one of the worst in cinema and the rest of the film isn’t much better. Without any characters to actually root for and cringe worthy dialogue throughout…where can the film even go? Needless to say, it can only go down from there. On the bright side, the film was up front about itself from the get go, hence the title.

The film starts off with a guy named Kale. His father passed away due to a car accident a while back and he never recovered from it. After slacking through another class and having the professor call him out on it, Kale quickly went for a punch. It landed him in house arrest and he will really be arrested if he leaves the house for longer than a few seconds. He can technically make it to the front and back yard, but that’s it. Kale decides that if he can’t go around beating people up anymore, he can at least be a stalker. He spends his time spying on the main heroine and even invites his friend as well. Unfortunately, it turns out that one of his other neighbors is a murderer and since Kale made it obvious that he knows about this…the group is in danger now. Can Kale stop this guy or will he destroy them all?

Well, the basic premise already starts this film off at a disadvantage. Naturally, the main heroine decides that she doesn’t care about Kale’s antics, or the fact that he crashed or party in a fit of rage because it’s a bad movie it shows that he cares. It’s just hard to watch because you already know that Kale is not a good guy at all. Lets face the facts, he punched out a Professor who wasn’t even being super antagonistic. Sure, he played the Dad card, but the main character had been sleeping through classes and hadn’t even seemed apologetic. After that, Kale did his best to do all the wrong things. He didn’t help out around the house, he would play games all day, then he would watch sketchy TV all day, etc, etc. Kale would always try to make the situation worse.

You can’t feel sympathetic with him at all. Honestly, his situation was pretty lucky all things considered. This is why you should have hobbies. If I had to stay at home for a full month for some reason, it’d be easy. I’d be blogging, gaming, TV watching, and doing all kinds of things. Even card/board games would get a shot. There’d also be a lot of time to do some cleaning as well or at least not adding to the mess. Heading back to the main heroine, it’s also quite telling that Kale would invite his friend over to watch as if she was the afternoon entertainment. There’s no way a healthy relationship can be formed from such a twisted start and it just never gets better.

As I already mentioned, none of the characters are good. It’s obvious why Kale isn’t good and the heroine is simply too easy. Even if it was to get Kale jealous, (Or should I say Especially?) she was getting awful close with the random strangers at the party and things were quickly getting dicey. If she is that free, then the pairing makes a lot of sense, but is still pretty terrible to see on screen. We can’t forget Kale’s friend either. The guy spends his first 5-10 minutes making one looooooooong repetitive dirty joke about how a Spanish word sounds like a sad English phrase. The professor lets him go on and on for reasons unknown. The friend also proves that he only cares about himself several times as he is ready to let Kale take the fall for the false murder accusation. Recording the heroes at the end is just adding insult to injury.

The film doesn’t even do well as a slasher. Now, this part is a little contradictory since the “better” you do as a slasher, the lower your score might be. After all, increasing the body count solidifies the villain as a threat, but will also likely make the film more violent. Well, the villain here can’t be taken too seriously since he keeps letting people go. He didn’t destroy the friend, he spared the heroine, he spared the Mom, etc. I get that it was all part of the plan, but he reeeeally took his sweet time. I’d also argue that the way in which he invites people over to his house and then murders them sounds like a fool proof plan to fail. Nobody noticed any of this? None of the families were able to track the cell phone to that location before the person died? Even if the villain got rid of the phone, they could see it on the trail right? His wig disguise shouldn’t be as convincing as it was. I guess Kale’s eyes are as bad as his personality, but it’s still pretty sad.

The film also throws in some animal violence for good measure as the main villain destroys a deer and also takes down a rabbit. Why? It was part of his master plan to trick the cops and it works super well, but it doesn’t help the film. Back to the cops, they look terrible as per usual. One of them has a personal vendetta against Kale which he lets get in the way of his objectivity. When the main character leaves the house and the Police are sent to take him in, the cop decides to stop by a McDonalds esque place first to finish his Cheeseburger combo. By the time he gets to the house, his reflexes and reaction times are shot. He walks into the house and is quickly murdered by the main villain. It happens so quickly that he doesn’t even get to use his gun. Police are trained for this kind of thing, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t walk through a sharp turn in pitch black conditions without some kind of plan.

Kale only lives through the climax due to plot hax. After all, he makes all the wrong calls. He trips, makes a lot of noise, lies down to make himself an easy target, and a slew of other things. One character who I didn’t mention, but is also pretty bad is the Mother. She invites the neighbor to her house and then even after Kale tells her that he is a murderer, she doesn’t care. Sure, Kale’s not the greatest person to take tips from, but she should at least use some common sense and not go to the guy’s house in the middle of the night when they’re all alone and there isn’t anyone to protect her. She just looks soooooo bad here. The early part of the film tried to make her a tough and independent character, but this nullified all of that in an instant.

Overall, There definitely isn’t much in the way of positives for this film. Originally I was going to give it a 1 because it’s super distasteful, but does it really deserve a 0? Well, after thinking about it a while as this film stayed on the backburner, I think it actually did deserve a 0. It tries to romanticize a pretty bad relationship and doesn’t actually have a moral in place to show Kale that what he did was wrong. It’s never portrayed negatively at all, but rather it happened and the heroine rolled with it. Throw in the animal violence, the stalking scenes, the unlikable characters, and the bad writing….and it all leads to one conclusion. If you want to watch a film with a similar plot, but a much better execution, check out Rear Window instead. Whatever you do, just stay away from this film. There is really nothing good to be found here.

Overall 0/10

Secret Window Review

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I’m on a roll so lets go with another terrible film that I saw a little while ago. I’m actually shocked that this one is PG-13. The tone and everything felt like it was not, but I’ll give the film some slight props for that I suppose. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. This film falls into some deep traps that thrillers/horrors are prone to stepping in and the film’s glum outlook doesn’t help matters either. It’s simply not a fun experience from start to finish.

Mort is an author who hasn’t been doing well lately. His papers won’t write themselves and he certainly doesn’t want to do any writing either. Things get worse when a guy by the name of John Shooter shows up and claims that Mort stole his paper. Mort knows that this isn’t true because he wrote it before John claims that he did, but he needs proof. Until Mort can get proof, John decides that he will destroy everyone close to Mort and will scare him into submission. Can Mort get this guy off his back or is it time to panic and retreat? Lets just say that neither one is an option.

All right, this film’s terrible. We can start with the animal violence. Mort has a dog, but naturally he is destroyed. The film was pretty obvious about the fact that the dog was going to die and this prevents you from ever getting into the film. What’s the point when you know that something so criminal and tragic is about to happen. I didn’t like it…I didn’t like it one bit. It was a distasteful move right from the get go.

There’s also another big problem with the film and it concerns the ending. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often, but certainly gets quite bad when it does show up. There will be spoilers in this paragraph as well as the next one so skip these if you don’t want to know about it. You have been warned so lets go back to spoilers in 3….2……1….Go. It turns out that Mort is insane. John Shooter is a figment of his imagination. What this means is that Mort is the one who destroyed his dog. Mort is also the one who burned his house down and murdered a few other people. The ending of the film also sees Mort murder his wife and her new rebound guy. It then ends with him burying them and living a peaceful life in his house. The police know that it was him, but there is nothing that they can do about it without any proof. I call plot hax on that and it is a very depressing way to end.

There are few things worse than having the villain win in the end. Mort’s a mass murderer and the film ends with the knowledge that no charges can be put on him. Moreover, he still comes to town to intimidate people and everyone knows that he could easily do the same thing again. It’s a very depressing end to an already terrible film. Imagine if Sucker Punch had end….bad example. Imagine if Air had en…..another bad example. Lets go to Poltergeist 3. If the film had ended with Maryanne being stuck in astral world and everyone else just getting murdered and replaced with ghosts, it would have been pretty lousy. You question what the point of the whole film was. It’s possible to handle the situation well and still have the villains win in the end. For example, the Avengers film could have had Thanos show up and destroy the planet and I don’t think it would have affected the score negatively. If anything, it would have been a pretty fun ending. It’s all about execution, but you simply can’t have a psychotic mass murderer end the film off on a high note while all of the other characters get massacred. It just doesn’t work.

None of the characters are particularly likable here. Mort’s annoying and terrible. There’s no real way to like Amy since she is cheating on Mort the whole time. She wants a divorce, but she hasn’t actually gotten it yet so that destroys her as a character. Ted’s no better since he’s the rebound guy for Amy. To make sure that you don’t forget this, the film plays the flashback about 10 times or more where Mort finds this out the hard way. The only character who can be seen as semi good is the private investigator, but he’s not very good. He’s very relaxed about the whole thing and lets his guard down the whole time. He comes across as a guy who is all talk and no action. Needless to say, John Shooter is a pretty terrible villain as well.

The film feels very old despite being a 2000 and later film. Maybe it’s a technique that it used on purpose to achieve a retro affect. Whatever the case, the film looked and felt like a 1990’s R rated Indie horror film. While I can try to respect the fact that the film got this sinister tone, it doesn’t really help the film all that much at all. It doesn’t save it from the perfect 0 and doesn’t win it back any points. How could it? The plot twist at the end just ends up hurting your own trust in the film and it was already going to be a 2 or a 3 max. Add in the actual ending and then the 0 is an absolute certainty.

There isn’t a whole lot more to say about the film. If we ignore the plot twist, then there would have been a lot of plot hax and stretches of disbelief. With the twist, then everything adds up pretty well. I don’t like not being able to trust what I’m seeing though, it feels like a big cop out. I suppose that it’s the only way the film could go with this plot though. The writing wouldn’t have been able to handle it otherwise.

Overall, Secret Garden is a terrible film. It has one of the worst endings in film history, (And that’s saying something) a crippling plot twist, unlikable characters, and animal violence. I don’t think any film could survive such an onslaught of negatives. There is simply too much to overcome and the only mildly interesting scene in the whole film was a very brief fight, which doesn’t even matter thanks to the twist. It’s a shame…a true shame. If you want a film with some semblance of quality, then check out I Know What You Did Last Summer. If you want a film with actual quality, then go watch Space Jam. Trust me, there is a big difference between actually being a good film and having a very short glimpse of potential. Space Jam is the former and the Summer film is the latter. Secret Window can’t even make it to either category.

Overall 0/10

The Innocents Review

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It’s time for another sad film. This one ranks up there with After.Life and that’s not a good thing. It’s a fairly strange film that doesn’t know if it wants to be a supernatural horror or just a plain ole snoozefest. It tries to find a balance between the two genres, but doesn’t do a particularly good job at either one. Ah well, at least the title can be true now. We were innocent to the fact that a horror film could be utterly boring while still trying for jump scares before this film. (Well…..that may not be entirely true) Let us dive into this review!

Giddens is offered a job as a caretaker. She will look after a rich guy’s two kids since he wants nothing to do with them. He likes being a single bachelor and doesn’t want kids cramping his style. He tried hiring someone else a while back, but she died so he needs a replacement. Giddens is appropriately reluctant to take on this task, but does so against her better judgment. Once she arrives at the estate, she finds that it is not an ordinary house. Ghosts seem to lurk about and many secrets are kept. The worst part is the fact that the two kids are possessed by ghosts at random points during the day. These ghosts belong to the bad influence who died and the other caretaker..who also died. Can Giddens cure these kids or will she have to head back home?

The premise doesn’t leave much room for optimism does it? It doesn’t even sound like a good film on paper and that’s before the execution drives you up the wall. Giddens isn’t a good protagonist and that should be the first warning bell. She always beats around the bush and lets the kids have their way with her. One of them tries to choke her and she only half heartedly resists. Luckily the land lady happened to show up. Giddens only has one good idea in the whole film and that is when she decides to leave. Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of turning back to fight the ghost one last time and it convinces her not to leave. Ah well, I guess listening to evil ghosts is a thing now. Her final plan of staying alone with the main antagonist to talk things over is also just as silly.

Miles is the host for the main villain. (Peter) He returns home under tricky circumstances as he was expelled from his school. The school didn’t say why they expelled him and Miles won’t say either. It’s implied that Peter influenced Miles to act in a rather course manner which forced the school to make a move. Miles isn’t concerned or upset about this though because now he can mess with Giddens. Whether he is possessed or not, the film makes it a point to say that he is not a good kid. He hides letters, plays pranks, and seems to enjoy making Giddens have a tough time of things.

Flora is the other kid and she’s supposed to be the nice member of the group. That may be true, but she has a tendency to disappear from time to time. She goes to a small place in the middle of nowhere to just stand around. Heavy rain showers won’t stop her either and she likes to pretend that she doesn’t hear the horror tropes calling after her. One of the ghosts yells several times to get her attention, but only the viewers notice. I can’t say that she was likable as she simply acted too oblivious the whole time.

The only reasonable character is the house maid. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much help either at times as she would take the side of the kids and didn’t like to talk about what had happened earlier. To an extent, it’s hard to blame her though as the kids were always nice and proper around her. She is one of the only characters to survive the whole ordeal. Sometimes, standing on the sidelines and not creating attention is the only way to live in these films, but I can’t say it’s the most heroic way to do things either. Still, leaving was probably the best decision that she could make.

All right, the film sounds boring, but is it really worthy of a 0? Absolutely!! First off, the fact that the villain inhabits Miles is an excuse to have him make advances on Giddens, which is quite disturbing. Keep in mind that he is a little boy and that he does succeed once and then again at the end. It makes for some really cringe inducing scenes that destroy the film. Even if the film had actually been semi decent, this would have thrown it back to the gutter. We don’t need those kinds of plots in our movies, lets keep them in oblivion.

The film’s backstory also makes no sense. The caretaker was apparently a nice and respectable person, but then she randomly falls into a twisted relationship with Peter. Apparently she liked the fact that he was a bad person and wanted to be treated badly. The film wanted to make everyone crazy in some way or form, but the change in personality was way too sudden. It continues when Giddens also starts to go crazy to the point where you’re supposed to wonder if the whole thing wasn’t just her being delusional. To clarify, the film happened, but the spirits may have just been things that she imagined. Most of the stuff that they did didn’t affect the real world in any way. The main point of suspicion would be how Miles acts at times, but it could all just be stuff that he learned from Peter.

I don’t think the ghost of Peter ever actually breaks any windows or opens doors either. Usually Giddens would just see him and fly into a panic. If it was just a delusion, then this would make sense. I personally prefer the supernatural elements to be real though so that doesn’t do the film any favors either. The ending is dark as well to remind you just what kind of film this is. Even kids aren’t safe apparently. The only bright spot here is the fact that the film isn’t very long so you don’t have to be looking at your watch too often. The best advice I can give you is simply not to watch the film. Lets face it, there are better flicks out there.

Overall, The Innocents is a stinker I’m afraid. You should forget about it and move on. This movie simply couldn’t do anything right and while it may have been trying to be clever with the title, it just reminds you that the film should have tried harder. If you want a good horror films where two kids have to fight off spirits..you’ll be waiting a while. That’s not exactly a proven formula for success. Instead, you should go watch some comic book films which will at least have good action scenes and plots to engage you in. It will ultimately provide you with the superior experience.

Overall 0/10

After.Life Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. A review of the unedited version would likely be even more negative. All thoughts below should be addressed as such.

Now this film is definitely one of those terrible ones that will make you want to take a nap. It’s not so much that the film is boring, but that it is just terrible with a really bad ending and characters who don’t have much common sense. There are few things as bad as having an ending where a crazed mass murderer ends up getting the better of the heroes and the police, but this film also makes sure to add in the fact that this guy is just going to keep on murdering people and now he can do it with a kid who he is grooming up to be the next generation’s version of him.

Do you know what the “best” part of this whole thing is? The fact that the poster takes away any question of whether the plot is real or not. To understand this, lets get into the premise. A girl gets into a car crash after storming away from her boy friend. She wakes up in the morgue, where a guy tells her that she is dead. He claims that she simply doesn’t know it yet and that he can talk to dead people. He lets her know that she can’t leave the building though…..and keeps her drugged so she doesn’t recover her strength. Anna starts to consider the fact that she might be dead. If she is…then shouldn’t she accept her second death to make the first one move on?

So, part of the mystery is whether she is alive or not. Well, the poster basically clears that up before the mystery even starts. It shows the reasoning that the main villain has and why he destroys people. He targets those individuals who he believes have already lost the will to live. He believes that they don’t deserve to live anymore as they will drag others down and so he targets them. He kidnaps them and convinces the world that they are dead. There’s no real question by the end that Anna is actually alive, but if you’ve seen the poster then you know this from the start. That being said, you’ll probably realize this right from the beginning anyway since this is the most logical way for the film to play out. Especially if you know that this film is an indie production, which always goes for extra grit.

None of the characters are likable either. Anna gets into the mess in the first place because she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She’s in a really bad mood for the whole film. I forgot why, but as a result she constantly gets upset with her boyfriend and even runs out during their dinner for no acceptable reason. She wouldn’t even let the guy defend himself. Then, once she’s told that she is dead, Anna makes all of the wrong decisions. She could have escaped by jumping out the window and she even had a chance to stab Eliot. There were so many moves that she could have made, but instead she decided to just start believing him. Also, shouldn’t it be obvious to her that she is alive if she can throw things around and make a mess of the room to the point where Eliot noticed? Common sense guys…..it’s time to use it!

Paul isn’t much better. He makes a little more of an effort for the two of them to be together, but ultimately he turns into a bad character. He doesn’t make a terribly good effort to find Anna once he finds out that she may be alive. Instead, he even backhands a kid and is taken away. Then, he is very easily bumped off after he falls for Eliot’s trap. Seriously, he played all of his cards wrong. Naturally, I didn’t like ELiot either. He’s just another deranged mass murderer that tries to be deep and insightful, but it just full of hot air. The kid is a terrible character either as he turns into a psychotic murderer without a whole lot of convincing. He was just a bad kid from the start.

Aside from the terrible ending where the murderers are going to just claim more and more victims, the film falls into a lot of other holes as well. We have animal violence, as a kid murders a bird and we also have unnecessary fan service with the generic shower scene popping back up. The film never even tried to be classy. From the start you could tell that this was going to be a bad film, you just couldn’t guess just how bad it would be. A lot of times, the film didn’t even know what was going on.

Anna was apparently sick with something since she got a nosebleed at one point. I suppose this is meant to account for why she was in a bad mood, but it’s not explained at all and isn’t a really good reason either. The lights all going out in the school is another random moment that makes no sense. The kid couldn’t move fast enough to pull that trick out and it’s a crazy supernatural moment that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another way for the film to try and give Anna some extra suspense.

Overall, After.Life is a terrible film and it’s the latest entrant into the 0 stars category. It’s just hard to get much worse than this film as it’s a major chore to watch and has a really bad ending. A bad ending can hurt a good film, imagine how much it hurts a bad one. I don’t think people want to see a mass murderer get away scot-free and strengthen his position. It’s just in bad taste. I highly recommend avoiding this film as much as possible. There’s nothing redeemable about the film, whether it be the characters, messages, or writing. You’re better off watching just about anything else. After all, if the film’s poster can spoil the answer to the film’s question before you even start watching it….then is there even a point to this whole thing? I don’t think so.

Overall 0/10

Mama Review

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I’m afraid that it’s time for another horror film and this one is certainly not very good at all. In fact, it’s one of the weaker horror films, but I suppose the writers and producers can take solace in the fact that they tried to grab as many horror tropes as they could. This is probably a good film to show people if you want to explain why the horror genre just isn’t good. There’s no other reason to check this film out though so you’ll want to stay as far away as you possibly can.

The film starts off with a guy taking his kids to an abandoned shelter in the forest so he can destroy them, but a creature puts an end to them first. This creature then takes care of the kids for many years until Lucas shows up and brings them back to civilization. Together with Annabel, he tries to rehabilitate them and get them to act like normal kids. The problem is that the creature doesn’t like this turn of events and prepares to show them what true power really is.

While the plot may sound slightly different, it’s essentially the same old same old. The ghost is now in the house and it keeps haunting Annabel time after time after time. “Mama” never actually does anything though so maybe she was just enjoying the jump scares. No matter, it worked out well for Annabel. Even when the creature had Annabel alone, it never made a move. At least we do know that it can fight though so I’ll give the film some slight props there. Mama is slightly weaker than other characters like the Grudge as it doesn’t seem like it can really do any reality warping. Still, it has the ability to corrupt and destroy what it touches. It steals the life force of its prey, albeit a little slowly. It has basic super strength and speed as well. We can’t forget the levitation either and its ability to summon edible moths. Mama’s not a great villain, but at least the monster actually got to appear and had a distinct design and power set. It could have almost been sympathetic since it helped the kids out and all. The ending wrecks that though as it decides to take out another kid for the prophecy. The ghost should have realized that such a move would probably hurt the kid, but I guess she’ll settle for having the ghost spirit as a friend instead.

Lets start talking about the array of negatives in the film. To start with, there is animal violence. I definitely saw that coming. The two wolves dying in the opening credits weren’t as bad as they could be since it was all drawn using crayons. However, we then saw the kids eating moths later on which was very gruesome and disturbing. That’s a nice way to lose some points, but the film was really just getting started.

Annabel and Lucas are pretty bad characters and that’s why you will end up rooting for the Step Aunt, Cousin, something person. She wanted custody of the kids and while she wouldn’t have fared too well, she would have done better than this pair. Lucas is knocked out for most of the film and when he does show up, he’s knocked out rather easily. He talked a good game, but crumbled when it counted and shouldered all of the responsibility on Annabel even though she never wanted a part in this. He was rather rude the whole time. Annabel’s not that great either although at least she ignores the bad advice that her friends were giving her. She gradually learns to get better with the kids. Still, she helps us get to the next horror cliche of the two leads messing around with each other only to stop when the villains…or in this case the kids show up. One thing you know from horror movies is that ghosts don’t like to see any inappropriate behavior and it usually costs your life.

As for the beginning of the film it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. I thought it was hinting that the Dad was going to murder the kids because of the ghost or some kind of plot twist. By the time you reach the ending, the only real conclusion you can come to is that the guy was just insane. It’s rather grim and dark for no real reason and the plot didn’t have any reason to be here. It’s good that the ghost was watching, but we didn’t need any more villainous characters. The ending manages to top the beginning in how bad it is though and destroys the movie even further. What could have maybe scratched by at a 2 ends up going all the way over.

By the end, it was all futile. The ghost grabs one of the kids and jumps off with her. The little girl dies and will likely now be a moth monster like the Mama. It’s definitely pretty dark and that’s the kind of ending that you never really want to see. I don’t mind the classic “Villain comes out of the closet in the final scene to destroy the main characters” as it is more of an implied sad ending as opposed to a direct one. Ending with this just makes the whole story pointless. The villain won and now she can return whenever she wants to get the other kid. I also don’t think it makes much sense since she had been raising the children and protecting them all those years.

Naturally, I also didn’t care for the fact that the film revolved around the two little girls so much. It was rather gruesome to see them in the initial appearance as they were in very poor condition from living in the wilderness so long. They even lost their ability to speak for a while and while the older one started to get better, it was definitely a pretty dicey plot. It’s one that wasn’t handled all that badly, but throw in the deranged Mama who was watching their every moves and it was definitely not all that fun.

Overall, Mama is not a good horror film in the slightest. The ending cements it as a completely terrible movie. The characters are all pretty bad for the most part and the villain doesn’t make any sense either. Lucas in particular is rather annoying as he takes the time to get lost in the forest for a whole day even when he knows that Annabel is being haunted at home and asked him to get home as soon as possible. It’s little things like that which remind you that this is a horror movie so none of the characters are going to act very smart. If you want a good horror movie to watch instead…you’re going to need to do some intense searching!

Overall 0/10

Captive Wild Woman Review

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It’s time for another retro review. I’m sure that the instant you saw this title you had a bad feeling about how this review was going to go down. Well, your instincts are right then. The Captive Wild Woman is a fairly terrible film that tries its best to keep on getting worse and worse as you watch it. It hits rock bottom and makes you wonder whether the film succeeded in capturing your attention as you disliked it or if it simply captured the time you spent watching it. One thing’s for sure, this will not go down as one of the ultimate monster films.

Fred is a circus guy who goes around kidnapping animals from their native habitats. Unfortunately, the wildlife preserves weren’t really ready at the time so nobody stops him from nabbing a lot of tigers, lions, and even a gorilla. His co-workers are impressed at his boldness. The only one who is too busy to bother about such things is his fiance, Beth. She lets Fred know that her sister is very sick with something that she’s always had and has never bothered her all that much, but now she wants to fix it. Fred’s understandably confused, but nods his approval. After Beth drops Dorothy off at this very suspect and shady building, she heads off. Fred’s new Gorilla ends up murdering someone who got too close to the cage and nearly finished someone else off as well. Dr. Walters uses this chance to kidnap the Gorilla and murders his assistant to give her brain to the creature. Using magic, Dr. Walters transforms the Gorilla into a lady named Paula and takes her to the circus to unravel his own plans….he succeeds!

So, what is the problem with this film? Let’s start out with the obvious case of animal violence. Once again, we see humans taking animals out of their natural habitats and forcing them to perform in cages for human amusement. That’s no better than slavery and especially when you consider that the animals aren’t being treated well at all. If they don’t do what the humans want, they get hit. It’s pretty terrible. These scenes go on for ages and ages as Fred keeps throwing the whip and never letting up. I was rooting for the animals to get him and at least they did get some of his predecessors, but Paula kept on saving him. Otherwise Fred would have been taken out of the picture very early on. Animal violence doomed this to a 0 right from the get go. It’s why I never like seeing circuses with animals in them and I’m skeptical on how they’re being handled. Luckily, you don’t really see circuses like this anymore so we’re doing something right.

Either way, there is no real way to like Fred in this adventure. For starters, he has no real problem with flirting with Paula right from the get go even though he’s already taken. Sure, the counter is probably that he didn’t really think of it as flirting and was just being nice…but I don’t buy it. He also completely ignores her the instant that his fiance comes to visit, which was also pretty over the top. When Beth finally confides in Fred and lets him know that Paula may be a villain, Fred just laughs it off instantly. He doesn’t believe her for a second and gets out of there ASAP.

Beth isn’t a great main heroine either and makes the kinds of decisions here that you would expect from the supporting characters in a Freddy Krueger film. She gets a call from her sister that something is not right and she fears for her life. The call is abruptly disconnected so Beth quickly calls the cops and gets to the bottom of this. Wait….she didn’t call the cops? Afraid not! Beth instead comes to the conclusion that there must have been something wrong with the phone line based on how calmly she walked over to the villain base without a care in the world. Naturally, Dr. Walters decides to destroy her as well, but there’s no rush. So, after letting Beth know that he’ll be destroying her in a moment, Dr. Walters lets Beth go over to the unlocked Gorilla cage which holds Paula…who has been wanting to murder Walters for a while now.
 This doesn’t end well for Walters, but I suppose anyone who didn’t check their common sense out of the door would have realized that. Then again, what do you expect from a guy whose whole plan revolved around an ex employee somehow breaking into a circus and transporting the Gorilla cage without getting slashed? (That scene made no real sense by the way…no wonder the film skipped it.)

Dorothy’s not much better than Beth. She doesn’t begin to suspect that something is up until she has a very long operation and then doesn’t get better for a few days. Seriously, she waited eons before actually making a call instead of just dashing out while Walters was busy. She had many opportunities to escape since Walters was always attending the circus and having fun messing with the main characters. No, she decided not to make a move until Walters made it back to the house and then she went down without putting any real resistance.

Dr. Walters is a pretty bad villain. He may have gotten the last word as the film ends with an epilogue about his life, but he’s a fairly terrible villain. There’s no real reason to sympathize or even understand his reasoning. His whole motivation for murdering everyone and making a human is just because he’s curious. None of it leads to anything and you have to wonder where he was going to go from here anyway. A Cat lady next? Sorry, that concept has already been taken and used by dozens of other films. Better luck next time…

Miss. Strand is another character who isn’t all that smart. She works for a mad scientist and knows that he is completely unstable. After seeing what he is about to do to the patient, she tells him up front that she will put an end to his evil plan. She’ll tell the cops and see that he goes to jail for life. Brilliant idea Miss. Strand…but why did you tell that to his face while you two are the only people in the building in the basement floor, while he is next to the door? Naturally, things don’t go well for her either.

Finally, we have Paula. By default, she is better than most of the other characters here. She is a contender for the best character in the film and I would consider that to be a great honor if her competition wasn’t so bad. She is going after a guy who is taken so that doesn’t bode over well. Plus, she’s a Gorilla so the whole relationship is warped from the start. Should have stuck to the friend zone. At least Paula was tough and could hold her own in a fight. It just wasn’t enough to help her survive a bullet in the back. (Well…with those sequels…..)

Overall, There’s nothing to really like about this film. It’s fairly short at least so that’s a slight consolation I suppose. The animal violence was just too much and you’ll be shaking your head as Dr. Walters bumps off the cast one by one. They all made the worst decisions possible. I also have to question how Paula in her gorilla form made it all the way to the circus from Dr. Walters house in time to save Fred. Based on the rest of the film, it wasn’t all that close to the circus and you’d think that one of the cops would have stopped her since they were all very trigger happy here. Perhaps the writers were going to fix this after lunch, but the film was already due by then so they never got a chance. Either way, this is a film that you should skip. Go take a nap instead.

Overall 0/10

Island of Lost Souls Review

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This review is of the edited version as I believe all airings don’t have the original extreme animal violence scene anymore. Still terrible though and it would be hard to make the review any harsher because it’s so bad.

Remember that feeling of falling off of your bike and scraping your knee, only to fall again on that same knee? That’s basically what it’s like to watch this film. It’s one of those films that is so horrific, so terrible, so awful that you won’t be able to find anything good to say about this film. The fact that Britain apparently gave it an X certificate before cutting out some of the incredibly terrible animal violence is quite telling. Even the author of the book didn’t approve of the film. It’s really just filled with terrible animal violence and ultimately there is no point to the story. Even the main poster is terrible. This film really couldn’t do anything right. At least films like this make other bad titles look somewhat competent.

Parker is on a ship heading back home, but he notices that the Captain is being cruel to his animal slaves. He punches the guy, but is thrown overboard. Parker is forced to go to a haunted island where more animals are being cruelly tortured and is held against his will for a while. Parker doesn’t mind for the most part and even gives a pass to the evil doctor. After cheating on his fiancee, Parker starts to realize that this place may be having a bad effect on him so when his friends come to rescue them, he doesn’t bother to warn them of the dangers. On the contrary, he sends an old man off to fight the island’s dozens and dozens of inhabitants on his own. Once Parker is sure that the old man is dead, he heads off with the main heroine and one of the villains to try and escape, but it will likely take one more sacrifice. He’s planned for that though…

This film’s another train wreck in case you couldn’t guess by now. The only decent character here is the Captain and even he isn’t all that smart. Going outside on your own in the middle of the night in enemy territory is just foolish and drinking/eating a lot in an unfamiliar place is not a strategically wise move either. He certainly should have taken a bigger crew with him for such an expedition. He is better than the other characters by default though. Parker wasn’t a likable character for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that he is very quick to cheat on his girl friend. After that, he admits that he didn’t really care much about the animals being tortured and was content to leave the island and not do anything about it. He’s what you would call a coward. He’s worried about what might happen if he stands up for the creatures so he chooses to feign ignorance. While the animals are being experimented on, he goes back to his cabin to read a book. I was waiting for him to get knocked off, but that would only happen if this was a modern horror film. Since it’s retro, everyone else gets to die except for him and the main heroine.

Most films lose some stars and points for having mild animal violence. You can imagine how this film became a 0 instantly with the high degree that is featured here. This film is right up there with Sucker Punch as one of the worst films of all time. As bad as Awake was, this is in a whole different level. It’s not that long at least, but still tries to be as unpleasant as humanly possible. Dr. Moreau has an extremely dark ending to try and compensate for how violent and dark they made him, but it certainly doesn’t win the film back any points. There is even a trope for this kind of thing where a villain will commit some kind of atrocity and then that same atrocity happens to them by the end as a form of karmic justice. In actuality, this vicious cycle just means that the film will have the same dark moment twice and further sink it into the ground.

On the surface, you might find it appealing to see a villain like this meet an incredibly brutal end, but at that point, it is just too much. Simply have the villain die in an explosion or something, no need for him to get tortured just to prove a point. Films like this are just extremely toxic and just plain bad for you. Watching rubbish like this for a while will just give you a sour disposition and you’re better off watching something with actual good themes and light hearted moments. This film opts to be incredibly grim-dark the entire time instead.

Overall, there’s not much more to say about this film. It simply doesn’t have any class and you’ll be doing yourself a favor by skipping out on it. Animal violence shouldn’t be tolerated in any shape or form and the film better not have been using any actual animals for this. The whole thing is just unethical and if H.G. Wells typically writes books of such low quality, then I can safely say that he is extremely overrated. Most big name authors are though so I can’t say I’m very surprised. The summary tipped me off from the start that this was going to be a terrible film. Luckily, I think this is the last 0 star film at the moment, but we still do have some really negative ones coming up so prepare yourself. For every gem, there are 5 old banana’s in the trash can just waiting to be picked up. This was one of those, but at least, now I have a film I can easily mention when someone asks what some of the worst films of all time are.

Overall 0/10

Awake Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be even more negative..which is hard to believe, but that’s just how bad this film is.

It’s time to look at another film that kicked the bucket. What’s impressive about Awake is that it is even worse than the last two films that I reviewed and manages to score a perfect 0. Trust me, that is pretty hard to do since you have to make a lot of mistakes and keep yourself from doing anything right. Awake pulled it off, but unfortunately, that isn’t something that it can really brag about in the future. The concept behind Awake doomed it from the start, but it doesn’t help that most of the main characters are fairly unlikable and/or not that smart though. Ah well…let’s dive into this!

Clay has had a serious medical condition for a while now. He must finally go for the risky heart transplant operation or lose it all. He wants his friend Dr. Harper to do the surgery while his mother wants him to go with the world’s greatest surgeon instead, but Clay refuses. He has a quick marriage with Sam and then decides that he is ready. Unfortunately, Dr. Harper plans to destroy Clay in his sleep and the truly diabolical part of this is that Clay is awake throughout the whole operation. He can try to endure the pain, but his fate is sealed.

There are a multitude of reasons why this film faces the 0 star review that only truly horrible titles earn. For starters, this plot is basically about Clay being tortured. He is strapped to a table and is being cut open while having no chance to do anything about it. He can’t even call for help since he is paralyzed. That’s a terrible plot premise and I can’t stand torture so a whole movie about that was never going to be higher than a 0. It’s just not fun to watch and I mentally checked out after the first 5 minutes. I’m still watching, but mostly looking for little things to enjoy as the reviewing phase of the film was already basically sealed. I could take off the metaphorical reviewing cap and call it a day. The rest of the film wasn’t much better though so even without the premise, it wouldn’t have gotten much higher than a 2 or a 3.

So, let’s try to look past the torture and the fact that the main character can’t actually do anything. What is the point of the film? If Clay can’t actually alter events in any shape of form, then his plot may as well not even be present. He is simply another spectator along with us and just adds in his own words to slow the pacing down. The film likes to stack the deck against him so things continue to go from bad to worse. This review will have full spoilers so you may want to back out now while you’ve still got a chance. If not, prepare yourself! See, Sam never actually liked Clay. She simply charmed and married the guy to get his money after his death. It’s not something that is incredibly uncommon either and it’s why you should think carefully before marrying someone that you met through dicey circumstances.

How did they meet? Well, Sam was the new maid/caretaker for the house. (Clay’s rich btw so he should be extra careful right?) Clay walked in one day to find her rummaging through his stuff and she had probably already stolen a whole bunch of things. Naturally, she quickly used his shallow “love at first sight” against him and he forgot about the whole thing. She very quickly got him to marry her after that and then set him up for the surgery with the leader of this crime unit. The best (Or saddest part for Clay) part is that this was all part of the plan from the get go. All of the villains knew that Clay would fall for Sam so there was never any doubt on that end. The trap was so thorough that Harper didn’t even bother to remove the picture of him and Sam from his office. Whenever Clay would visit, they knew that the main character couldn’t piece together the obvious parts of the puzzle.

Clay’s a terrible character in case you haven’t guessed yet. He never even notices when Harper is subtly mocking him the entire time and taking a lot of shots at the fact that Clay is rich. Ah well, I suppose you can’t be smart and rich. Wait a minute…. I didn’t care for the villains either though. It may have been desperate times for Harper, but to send Sam off to woo Clay shows where his priorities lie. Considering that she didn’t mind the assignment at all, you’ll likely see the backstab towards the end coming right from the get go. Luckily, the cops nabbed them all anyway which is good. It would have been annoying to have seen Sam escape after all of that.

The only two good characters here were the Mom and the World Class Surgeon. The Surgeon talked a good game and was able to help out a lot in the end so that was good. He was pretty confident and definitely could have pulled off the procedure. As for the Mom, she was an actual intelligent character, which was rare to find around these parts. She warned Clay that Sam was just in it for the money and also warned him not to go with the operation under Harper’s supervision. He never had the greatest reputation after all. It’s a shame that it ultimately cost the Mom everything, but at least she outsmarted the villains. If only Clay had been a little smarter with his decisions, things could have been different.

At the very least, Awake had a lot of twists, but while they would only really count as mild shock value. They certainly don’t help to fix this train wreck of a film. You can’t save a bad premise no matter how hard you try. Attack on Titan taught me that the hard way as it had a top notch soundtrack and an excellent director. It ultimately still had to continue with the premise though and that was game over. Having someone go through a surgery while conscious and watching everyone else betray him as he moves through time? That’s not going to slice any life into the film. (See what I did there?)

Overall, Awake is a film that you will definitely want to keep in the shelf. I suppose it can be used as a cautionary tale for rich people, but hopefully they have enough common sense not to marry a burglar who is extremely suspect the entire time. There’s nothing really good about this film at all and not even a reboot can save this one. It’s the kind of film that was doomed right from the get go. Now, if the film had started off with Clay dying instantly as they gave him a bad dose of anesthesia and he returns from the Spirit World as a The Ring esque villain, that could have some potential. It’d probably only get a 2 or a 3, but that’s better than this right? There’s another 0 coming soon though…so prepare yourself!

Overall 0/10

Sssssss Review

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Uh oh, looks like it is time to review another film that puts the word rotten in rotten tomatoes. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is one of the worst films I have ever seen as it joins the exclusive 0 star club. There really isn’t anything redeemable about this film and every minute will have you cringing and wincing while looking at your watch and wondering why you aren’t ordering a nice pepperoni pie at Pizza Hut instead of watching this. Sometimes things get worse before they get better, other times they just stay bad. This is one of those times.

A college student named David is a pretty smart guy. He gets bullied a lot though and is happy to go along with Professor Carl when he is recruited to help with some Snake experiments. David doesn’t realize that this ordeal is actually quite sinister despite the Professor constantly injecting him with many needles along with the fact that the previous assistant mysteriously vanished. Can David save himself or have the dice already been cast? I’m afraid that it is the latter and the Snakes begin to wreck everyone!

Well, where to start with this mess? I suppose the first thing to remember is that this film is centered around Snakes. The problem with this is that the film uses it as an opportunity to include as much animal violence as possible. Snakes are choked, killed, and roughly handled by the characters involved. Carl decided to use Snakes as sport by taking one outside only to humiliate it and poke a stick in its face all day. Apparently he does this just about every day simply to show off his power. None of the snakes are handled well as all of the humans try to show their “dominance” by grabbing their necks and messing with them the whole time. I was rooting for the Snakes to take them all down and you’ll be happy to know that most of the characters don’t make it through this. When you mess with the Snakes be prepared for them to mess you up!

This is also the kind of film where one night stands happen quite regularly. The class bully gets one of those moments for no real reason only to be murdered by a snake in the next scene. David and the main heroine also have one of these moments even though they only just met each other a few hours ago. He also gets it afterwards since he has to fight a Snake Eater and those don’t play games. The main heroine manages to make it out of the film alive, but just barely and mainly because Carl didn’t want her to get hurt. Everyone else was fair game.

There was also a fairly mean professor who likes to mess with Carl. He was actually right on the money that Carl was insane, but his reaction times weren’t enough to save him. Even after he solves Carl’s riddle, snakes murder him anyway. Let’s face it, none of these characters were safe from the snakes. They wanted their vengeance and made sure to grab it as quickly as possible. The Cops come to check out matters since they know that someone never made it back out after working for Carl. Surely they’ll do something right? Unfortunately not as the film portrays the cops are terribly unintelligent characters. For starters, they’re scared of the snakes. Even after that it is lightly implied that they suspect something, but they decide not to actually make any moves based on their info. Instead they decide to wait and see even though more people have been murdered and another teenager has vanished. By the time they make a move, it is far too late for them to really be of help to anyone.

This film plays out like a classic horror film as every character is bumped off one at a time. There is no twist ending here though as it just abruptly ends with another death. The film never stays classy though and there were no good parts in the entire film. After all, all of the characters either suffered for a long time before dying or just died. There is no happy ending here in the slightest and the villain literally got away with murder and crazy experiments for years. You’d think that the film would have tried to save someone, but no…it opted for the dark ending. The first teenager who vanished had the sad fate of being forced to lie down in a corner while people laugh at him for ages and ages. Definitely way too dark a plot if you ask me.

Now, could this film have had potential if there was no animal violence, no one night stands, and if Carl had been stopped before he had mutated David? I’d say not really since the previous assistant’s fate was still rather terrible, but maybe the film could have gotten a 3 instead of a 0. It would still be an improvement I suppose. The plot in and of itself is what really doomed the film and it couldn’t recover from that. This is one film that I hope never gets a reboot or a remake.

Overall, Sssssss uses all of the classic horror tropes and cliches that it can find, but that only succeeds in making the film worse and worse. None of the characters are even remotely likable as even the mean teacher is technically a bad character and only serves to be the lesser evil. We even find out that a gas attendant is a mean, unlikable character just for the lolz since the writer wanted to ensure that you couldn’t like anyone. Did I mention that Carl also gives his snakes a lot of beer to drink so that they’ll be drunk? It certainly shows that he is always doing something morally wrong even when he is not murdering and experimenting on people. You also have to question the point of his research since turning people into snakes doesn’t really help with anything. They may outlive humans in his fantasy, but transforming people one at a time in such a slow fashion will ultimately not make even the slightest bit of difference. His research died along with him and the film.

Overall 0/10